EU Dota reforms with high-profile roster changes before DPC 2021-22 begins

Dota 2
November 22, 2021
Marcus Wong

European Dota expects a massive influx of fans and expectations after the International 10 home run by the CIS team, Team Spirit.

However, the fame and glory are entirely on Team Spirit’s behalf as the East European representative, who won the championship. Meanwhile, the West European scene has been deteriorating, to say the least. Team OG and Alliance met their premature eliminations, while other notable EEU powerhouses, Team Liquid and Nigma didn’t even qualify.

It doesn’t come as a surprise that European powerhouses are frantically mixing and matching their Dota 2 line-ups. After all, it’s only days before the Dota Pro Circuit 2021-22 roster lock.

Jerax

OG goes fully fresh as Ceb, Notail and Topson decide to step aside

Team OG decides to mix things up for upcoming season, announcing a fully revamped roster of five “relative unknowns”. The final two players in Notail and Topson finally announced they will be taking a break from competitive play as the organization looks for fresh blood moving forward.

The future role of Topson is yet unknown, while Notail has already committed to being a mentor and advisor to the new roster as they grow and build synergy for the upcoming season.

Matumbaman and Zai head for Team Liquid

Arguably pillars of Team Secret’s success, Lasse Aukusti “MATUMBAMAN” Urpalainen and Ludwig “zai” Wåhlberg left the team despite achieving third-place at Ti10. While not a championship title, it was Team Secret’s furthest success since it was founded.

Fortunately, the duo isn’t bidding goodbyes to each other yet because Team Liquid is their new home. Admittedly, this is just what Team Liquid needs to reclaim their position as one of Europe’s strongest.

On the flip side, the former Team Liquid squad finally parted ways after sticking together for three whole years. This is certainly sad news, as Aydin “iNSaNiA” Sarkohi’s brainchild team was known for their commitment towards each other as friends.

Fans were hopeful for the squad to overcome their endeavours with the power of friendship but to no avail.

The King joins Team Secret

With the vacancies in Team Secret, it wasn’t long before the brand page teased upcoming successors. Daryl Koh “iceiceice” Pei Xiang was the first to be announced as the team’s offlane player, followed shortly after by Syed Sumail “SumaiL” Hassan as midlaner.

Frankly, these are high-profile players, albeit controversial ones due to their unorthodox playstyles, especially SumaiL. There are reasons why SumaiL spent a hefty portion of his past year as a free agent. Although SumaiL was eventually scouted by team OG for Ti10, team OG’s run was still a blunder.

Hence, if there’s any team that could let SumaiL’s potential shine, it’s Team Secret. After all, Team Secret is no stranger to accepting oddballs, where captain Clement “Puppey” Ivanov will surely know how to utilize his allies.

Couple that with iceiceice, who has unrivalled synergy with most teams he played with, and Team Secret got themselves a TI-winning roster.

North American powerhouse, EG reforms

While not EU team news per se, Jesse “JerAx” Vainikka and Egor “Nightfall” Grigorenko will become EG players in the upcoming season. There’s nothing unjustifiably wrong with these decisions, yet fans went ballistic at the former OG/VP legends as they went away to play in NA.

However, EG needed a new pace in how they play Dota entirely. Both Daryl Koh “iceiceice” Pei Xiang and Tal “Fly” Aizik leaving for a different opportunity, meant EG needed high calibre players to complement Abed in the new season.

OG, EG, Secret and Liquid among many other powerhouses are all fixated on debuting revamped, stronger rosters. We don’t see such drastic roster shuffles in other regions yet. Even in China, where teams are famous for reshuffles, they prefer practicing with a steadier, older rosters. Nevertheless, we believe the EU roster shuffle is healthy and exciting for the scene and Dota 2 betting. Hence, we will be eager to see what success these powerhouses can achieve in DPC 2021-22 soon.

Comments are closed.